My Apologies: The White House is Always the Last to Know

The other day I wrote in a column, The Reddest of All Presidents, that a “host of economists, who always seem to be the last to know, have cut GDP growth forecasts recently, in light of rising unemployment and falling manufacturing output. The latest to see the light at the end of the tunnel in its proper context as a speeding train coming right at us is Fannie Mae’s chief economist, Doug Duncan. Fannie Mae always seems to be the last-est of the last to know.”

Please accept my apologies, Mr. Duncan. I was wrong.

The White House is always the last to know.

But, you know how busy the White House is building an economy “built to last,” while the rest of us don’t build anything.

On Friday, the White House surreptitiously revised downward their Gross Domestic Product forecast for the rest of year to 2.3 percent for the full year 2012, and 2.7 percent for the year 2013.

Given the subpar GDP growth already on the books for the year -1.75 percent before they revise the estimate downward again, which of course they WILL do- that means that the White House is projecting 2nd half economic growth of over 2.8 percent; and then an economic slowdown after that.

And THAT means the White House still has no clue.

The White House is predicting that the economy will speed up in the fall- based on what? Occupy Walmart spending?- and then slowdown for 2013.

Riiiight.

The Obamaconomy has only averaged about 2.2 percent annually in three and a half years of failed policies, says Jim Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute who compares Obama’s economy vs. Reagan’s. Pethokoukis also says that falling below the 2 percent GDP threshold- which I predicted back in December we would do this year- is a bad sign of things to come.